

Leading for Creativity
Leading for Creativity
Go Deeper with Certificate Programs
Leading for Creativity is part of a certificate program:
What You'll Learn
Week 1: Introduction
Watch a sneak peek
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Leading for Creativity—A taste of the learning experience
3 Video Lessons
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Getting Started—A preview
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The Mindset of Curiosity—The power of questions
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About Your Instructor: Tim Brown, Chief Executive Officer, IDEO
1 Assignment
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Finding Answers Through Questions: The next meeting you go to, record all the questions asked. Think about what these questions started to illuminate.
2 Discussions
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What does leading for creativity mean to you? How might your team or organization benefit from more creative support?
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What’s your biggest question? What inspires you and pushes you to think bigger?
Week 2: Leading with a Strong Point of View
4 Video Lessons
- The Explorer—Setting the course for success
- Frame a Challenge—Striking a balance
- Frame a Challenge—Creating challenge questions
- Other Ways to Lead with a Strong Point of View—Hiring talent
1 Assignment
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Leading with a Strong Point of View: Connect your day-to-day work with your organization's purpose and vision.
4 Discussions
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When have you seen leading with a strong point of view shut people down? When have you seen it inspire others?
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Imagine a challenge you're working on right now. What would your dream team look like?
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What are other examples of leading with a strong point of view?
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What will be easy to integrate into your team or organization? What will be difficult?
Week 3: Leading Through Culture
5 Video Lessons
- The Gardener—Nudging culture
- Design a Ritual—Reinforcing beliefs & behaviors (Part I)
- Design a Ritual—Reinforcing beliefs & behaviors (Part II)
- Other Ways to Lead Through Culture—Physical spaces
- Nudge Culture—Nudge culture with IDEO
1 Assignment
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Leading Through Culture: Design and try out a ritual for your co-workers, family, or friends.
5 Discussions
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Think of a time you saw a change in culture make a significant difference. What happened? What was the impact?
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How does your organization or team’s culture compare to our list of creative beliefs and behaviors? What are the gaps and tensions?
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What inspired you about using physical spaces to set conditions that help creativity thrive? How might you translate this to your own work or life?
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How might you design a moment to encourage open conversation within your organization? What are the ways you might nudge your organization's culture to better support creativity?
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What do you personally find most challenging about leading through culture?
Week 4: Leading Alongside
3 Video Lessons
- The Coach—Staying present
- Guide an Experiment—Supporting your team at critical times
- Other Ways to Lead Alongside—Career navigation
1 Assignment
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Leading Alongside: Practice coaching your team through ambiguous moments
4 Discussions
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What person has played a coaching role in your life? What's one unique characteristic or skill this person possesses?
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Share a time when you guided an experiment and it didn't go as planned. Where was the breakdown? Which tip could have helped you guide your team forward, and why?
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What other ways do you find yourself leading alongside others? How has that experience helped you grow as a leader?
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What are your strategies for staying present and engaged? How will you know when to lean in and when to create space for your team to take ownership?
Week 5: Conclusion
1 Video Lesson
- Course Conclusion—Go lead for creativity
1 Assignment
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Final Project: Design your leadership plan and commit to behaviors and mindsets from the course.
1 Discussion
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What's the thing you're most excited about taking with you as you go off and lead for creativity?
Meet Your Instructors

Tim Brown
Chair of IDEO
Tim Brown led IDEO for more than 19 years. He speaks frequently about the value of design thinking and innovation. He has earned numerous design awards and exhibited work at galleries including the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He wrote the book Change by Design.
Frequently Asked Questions
Cohort courses run on a set calendar, with fixed start and end dates. Course learning is self-paced within those dates and requires approximately 4-5 hours per week over 5 weeks. Courses consist of videos, activities, assignments, access to course teaching teams, and feedback from a global community of learners.
Cohort courses also provide optional 1-hour video Community Conversations, held weekly by the teaching team. They occur during set times, which are released during the first week of the course, and set to accommodate as many time zones as possible.
All of our courses are fully online and self-paced, so you can take them from any time zone, anywhere in the world.
During 5-week cohort courses, your course teaching team will host scheduled virtual community conversations which are optional. Timing will be announced during the first week of the course and is set to accommodate as many time zones as possible. Don’t worry if you aren’t able to make it, as these are purely optional.
Absolutely! We have had many teams go through our courses together with great success. For those taking our courses as a team, we provide a couple of additional benefits:
1. A Team Learning Guide, developed to provide your team with resources to facilitate offline discussion to complement the in-course experience.
2. A Manage Learners function, which provides visibility into your team's progress within the course.
3. The ability to create a private Learning Circle, which is a closed space for discussion on the learning platform specifically for your team.
For more information, visit our Team Learning page.
You can purchase your course by clicking Enroll on this page. This will take you to our checkout process where we accept various credit cards, PayPal, or Shop Pay.
We also offer installment plans which you can select at checkout if you use the Shop Pay method of payment. Available for U.S. learners at the moment.
Collaborate with a Global Community
Work with Expert Coaches
Our teaching team has extensive applied industry knowledge. They'll help deepen your understanding and application of the course content by facilitating written discussions, live video moments, and assignment feedback.
Expand Your Network
Join virtual live discussion groups for deeper conversation, reflection, and connection led by teaching team members and available multiple times a week across time zones.
Receive Feedback
Gain tips, techniques, and a downloadable feedback guide; and share and receive feedback on assignments from peers.



Loved by Learners Across the Globe
Leading for Creativity
Cohort Course“It was perfect timing with my desire to shift my firm's vision as we were beginning to hire new staff. It really provided insight to the process in ways I hadn't experienced just by listening to TED Talks and reading articles. The assignments added more focus to the learning.”
Leading for Creativity
Cohort Course“Leadership is a new role for me and I found a lot of great information from the course. I think that those who have been in a leadership role for a period of time will also find this course beneficial to get them to think in a different way.”
Leading for Creativity
Cohort Course“I learned how to bring design thinking into my role as a cultural facilitator and in-house executive coach and built an entire program by applying IDEO U's creative framework to my work. The energy around these new skills springboarded me into launching a consultancy and taking huge, creative strides as a leader.”
Leading for Creativity
Cohort Course“A few months after taking the Leading for Creativity course I was promoted to lead design in our organisation. The fact that I was already demonstrating creative leadership qualities helped the leaders make this decision, and I felt confident enough to accept the offer, knowing what is expected of a creative leader.”
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Enroll As a Team
The practice and application of design thinking, innovation, and creativity is highly collaborative and team based—which is why we believe that learning is better together. Take a course as a team and develop new skills and mindsets, have deeper discussion during course kickoff and debrief sessions, and build a shared understanding.